Clarity [Digipak] by Michael (Guitar/Vocals Gregory (CD, Jun-2010, ESP-Disk)

Album Features
UPC:	825481030281
Artist:	Michael (Guitar/Vocals Gregory
Format:	CD
Release Year:	2010
Record Label:	ESP-Disk
Genre:	Avant-Garde/Downtown, Jazz Instrument

Track Listing
1. Clarity
2. A View of This Life
3. Oliver Lake
4. Prelueoionti
5. Ballad
6. Clarity (4)
7. Ab Bb 1-7-3°
8. IOMI

Details
Playing Time:	42 min.
Distributor:	Allegro Corporation (Dist
Recording Mode:	Stereo
SPAR Code:	n/a

Album Notes
Personnel: Michael Gregory Jackson (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, bamboo flute, marimba, timpani, percussion); Oliver Lake (flute, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, talking drum, cowbells); David Murray (tenor saxophone); Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet, flugelhorn).Audio Remixers: Joel Bluestein; Michael Gregory Jackson.Liner Note Author: Stanley Crouch.Recording information: Downtown Sound, NY (08/11/1976); LA (08/11/1976); Nineteen Studio, Hartford, CT (08/11/1976); Downtown Sound, NY (08/14/1976); LA (08/14/1976); Nineteen Studio, Hartford, CT (08/14/1976).Photographer: B. Smith.Clarity is one of the most interesting titles in guitarist Michael Gregory Jackson's sparse catalog. Jackson had initially played in alto saxophonist Oliver Lake's band in the early seventies and hung around the loft scene initiated at Sam River's Studio Rivbea in New York. On his first date as a leader, he employs Lake and trumpeter Leo Smith who both double on an assortment of instruments, along with tenor saxophonist David Murray on one of his earliest dates. Jackson's relatively conventional electric and acoustic guitar style works in tandem with electric mandolin, bamboo flute, timpani marimba, percussion, and vocals (on the title cut only.) Clarity utilizes space and percussion similar to like-minded AACM (or, for that matter, BAG) dates of the time. With the combined participants and ESP banner, you would expect this to be an intense avant-garde summit meeting, but it rarely reaches that level of intensity, with the exception of Clarity(4) instigated by the presence of Murray's Ayler-like screeches. ~ Al Campbell